6Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Medicine, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, International Vaccine Centre, University of , Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

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Abstract

Neisseria gonorrhoeae is the causative agent of gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted infection (STI) of major importance. As a result of antibiotic resistance, there are now limited options for treating patients. We collected whole genome sequences and associated metadata data on 76 N. gonorrhoeae strains from around the globe and searched for known determinants of antibiotics resistance within the strains. The population structure and evolutionary forces within the pathogen population were analyzed. Our results indicated a cosmopolitan gonoccocal population mainly made up of five subgroups. The estimated ratio of recombination to mutation (r/m=2.2) from our data set indicates an appreciable level of recombination occurring in the population. Strains with resistance phenotypes to more recent antibiotics (azithromycin and cefixime) were mostly found in two of the five population subgroups.

Additional Information

Competing Interests

Author Contributions

Matthew N. Ezewudo conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.

Sandeep Joseph performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.

Timothy D. Read conceived and designed the experiments, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.

DNA Deposition

The following information was supplied regarding the deposition of DNA sequences:

NCBI: Accession Numbers: ATKL00000000 - ATRM00000000

Funding

This work was supported by National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAD) grant AI09768 (RFS, DD and TDR), and NIH grants R37 AI021150-29 (W.M.S.) and R43 AI097688 (T.D.R., D.D. and R.F. S.) and a VA Merit Award from the Medical Research Service of the Department of Veterans Affairs. W.M.S. was supported by a Senior Research Career Scientist Award from the VA Medical Research Service of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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